Impact, Intention, and Inspiration

Minutes

This isn’t exactly what I thought 2019 would look like when I was a kid, but it is still extremely advanced. Though we do not have hover boards, we do have self powered boards that are propelled by the shifting of our weight. Though we don’t have holographic messaging (like in Star Wars), we do have video messaging in our phones. We are not driving hover cars like the Jetsons, but there are cars that can now drive themselves. All of this to say that the world we live in now is different than the world I grew up in.

We live in easy times, in the sense that we can access the world from the palm of our hand. Whether we want to find a restaurant, look up a map, see what our friends are up to, buy toilet paper, or find out who the 26th president of the United States was (It’s Theodore Roosevelt by the way, I just googled that); all we have to do is wake up and grab our mobile device. That is easy.

Time saved is time gained

The ability to find answers to questions within a matter of seconds and minutes, frees up time in our days. School reports used to take many days to complete. We had to grab an encyclopedia and/or dictionary from the shelf to begin to find information; and those sources provided only base level insight. The libraries contained the deeper levels of insight and information that we needed to truly understand a topic.

Now, thanks to the internet and advancements in knowledge sharing; we can take in more information than we know what to do with. Not only can we find the definition of the word meaning, but we can find multiple articles that will give us insight into the idea of meaning. Not only can you find out what years that the American civil war took place, but you can also get a simplified index of key dates, people, battles, and events all on the same website.

These examples are used to drive home the point that we can learn, or at least know things, at a faster rate than ever before. Time has been given back to us. The days needed to research have been reduced to minutes and hours. Opportunity abounds in this new world, and the gap between who can have these opportunities is shrinking. These minutes saved, combined with the knowledge available to anyone with internet access connects the world.

And now that we have this time…

Though finding things is now easier, knowing what we are looking for is the key to unlocking the true potential of each day. If you have read any of my other articles, then you know that I seek to understand how to live life in a meaningful way. I seek to understand the balance between solitude and community, rest and work, selfishness and selflessness, family and friends, and an overall understanding of how to live an intentional life.

If we can learn and create at higher levels than ever before, we can go flying off the rails with the same ease as going towards our destination. We must learn to use this future to our benefit and the benefit of those around us. Take the time to establish our course of life. Establish the core of who we want to be, and we will begin to invest those minutes into what aligns with our course.

An efficient use of this time does not correlate to busyness. Productivity can take on many forms, and if what you are doing is pushing you toward who you want to be, then it is an investment. “Sometimes, doing a little bit of nothing is the very best something.”

This future is our reality. This is the world my kids will know, and it is the world I have grown to love. I do get caught up in the nostalgia of my childhood and the simplicity of the past, but that does not mean that those times are gone; it only means that I need to be intentional about providing opportunities that will allow for my kids to share in that experience.

Let’s embrace the gift of time we have in this future, and fly down the rails and not off of them.